This trip was different from my previous ones. It was the first one when I wasn’t travelling alone. Also, it was my first trip during the winter. My first flight. And for the first time ever, there wasn’t supposed to be any musical motive (however, during the trip it became clear that it wasn’t possible to avoid that). It all started when one late fall evening, a coursemate of mine along with her friend unexpectedly arranged me and my friend an unbelievably cheap flight to the country of Lithuanian emigrants: the United Kingdom. Thanks to them for that.

The home of The Beatles didn’t exactly welcome us with musical chords. It was cold, windy, and rainy. I realized that this trip could turn out to be a true survival challenge. To reach the center of Liverpool, which was over 10 kilometers away, we chose the oldest method of transportation: walking. At the beginning of our trip, understandably, we had a bit of a culture shock. Traffic was going in the opposite direction. Within an hour, we came across three or four piles of animal feces. The English accent. As we were wandering, we found ourselves in some sort of protected area for construction materials. Despite our stupidity, the guard asked us to leave very nicely. He even offered to call us a taxi for our trip to the city center. We walked all day, occasionally stopping to ask for directions, admiring the architecture and just like true homeless people, pulling out our very non-appetizing food.

We reached the center in the evening and just roamed around trying to get used to the city. We found out that the train station wasn’t going to work at night, so we really started to worry about the upcoming night. The very quickly upcoming night. Thankfully, my nice coursemate told me that their group didn’t make it to London, so she invited us to join them for the night in a 3-guest room, although there were seven of us. We acted like true Lithuanian emigrants and completely filled every single corner of the room:) Nevertheless, we had a great night’s sleep and had plenty of energy for the next day.

We visited Anfield stadium and its surroundings. I just had to see it. We sat down near the stadium and waited for my friend J. who was supposed to join us. We, two homeless guys, were approached by the police while we were eating. They asked what we were doing here and warned us that this was a dangerous neighborhood. Once they left, E. and I joked that they probably didn’t even know what a dangerous neighborhood was. They should visit the neighborhood of Kaunas that E. lives in and once again consider what the term “dangerous neighborhood” means. J. informed us that he was having trouble getting to us, so we decided to change our dislocation and headed toward the train station. After a while, J. showed up.

We bought some wine and began to search for a place to sit down and managed to find a pretty decent spot. We were enjoying our wine along with some leftover beer the emigrant brought. We talked about how J. was doing. It was nice to listen to my friend who I hadn’t heard anything from in a while. Well, it wouldn’t have been England if some woman wouldn’t have approached us and very politely asked us to leave. This highlighted the 2 things that I hated about England: 1. Hypocrisy. I had absolutely enough of it during the 5 days of the trip. 2. Zero freedom. Every single patch of land was owned by someone. It’s crazy what absurd systems people manage to create. The borders they build between each other.

We headed back into the public and went to a random pub. We got some beer and soon realized that around us, three homeless guys, there were only elderly people. With very official and formal clothing. But we didn’t care. After a while, we realized it was also karaoke night. What else could we possibly have needed at that moment? J. pulled out a liquor bottle from underneath the table and we began to mix it with our beer. Well, except for E., who was as abstinent as ever. You could really learn a thing or two from him. We were completely relaxed and the worries of where we were going to spend the night were completely gone. We didn’t even care about the cold nights awaiting us. We were just having fun. Finally, we decided to show off our singing skills. The singers before us were pretty impressive and, to our surprise, hit the notes perfectly. Well, we weren’t “too far off from them”. We loudly and screamingly sang Wonderwall by Oasis with E. If I remember correctly, J. even tried to show off some of his dance moves. The announcer of the karaoke night didn’t hide his irritation but we were as happy as ever.

Later, the Three Squatters wanted to represent Lithuania once again but “for some reason” the announcer ignored our request for a new song. But after a while, we still managed to get back up on the stage. Our trio turned into a quartet when an English man who was a devoted Bob Dylan fan decided to help us out. Unfortunately, the pub closed at midnight and we were on the street again. We tried to get into some other pubs but unsuccessfully because the least drunk member of the Three Squatters lost his backpack full of food and clothing. But there’s always a silver lining. From then on, he turned into a true homeless person and walked around with a plastic bag. We decided to go to the hotel we slept at the other night and try to get a room for a third of the price.

We rang the doorbell of the hotel but nobody opened. Luckily, a few hotel guests went outside to smoke and we slipped inside. We didn’t even need to ask for a cheap room. E. locked himself in the shower, whereas J. and I squeezed into a small bathroom. For a homeless person, E. got a pretty nice place to sleep, while J. and I barely managed to properly fit into the bathroom and kept changing positions from the toilet to the filthy floor. But in the end, we got through the night.

The next day, we weren’t as vigorous as before. We just slept at the station. Well, at least tried to. We went to the Museum of Liverpool but our visit soon turned into a nap at the planetarium. We reached the point at which satisfying our instincts were the priority. Nothing else mattered - especially not how we looked or what other people thought. We just needed to survive. You’d think that it was extremely difficult and sad for us but the truth is, we couldn’t stop laughing. Nobody could have stopped our laughter when J. pulled out some herring in the middle of the museum or when we ate whatever ham we found lying around at the store.

Well, we weren’t so cheerful when we had to find a place to sleep. While E. and J. were expecting to get lucky just like the other day by our beloved hotel door, I was exploring the city looking for an abandoned building. None of us were successful. We decided to test out how hard the floor was by the columns of some sort of library or cathedral. After all, it was better than nothing. But after half an hour, J. and I realized that it was way too cold to fall asleep, whereas E. was already sleeping like a baby. We didn’t want to wake him, so we just walked off.

Unfortunately, we didn’t find anything suitable. We decided to lean by a wall that had a fan attached to it, giving us at least a bit of heat. Well, as it turned out, the street that had the fan had probably the most bars in Liverpool. There was a countless crowd of people and every time we got close to falling asleep, we’d be woken up by shouting drunk people. Plus, people kept talking to us, which was the last thing we needed at that moment. It was raining. Physically, we were feeling horrible. In my head, my weird critical thinking took over because J. and I no longer had any energy to speak. I don’t know if you get what I mean. Just imagine when you’re completely drained physically and on one hand, your instincts completely take over and on the other, you begin to think very weird thoughts. I thought about how pathetic the drunk people were and how pathetic we probably are too when we’re drunk. I thought about the architecture of the building in front of me. About women.

We decided to go see how E. was doing but once we got to the columns, he wasn’t there anymore. The clock was showing almost 6 am, so we headed to the station. It was still closed. We had a chat with some young locals. Of course, since we were foreigners, they looked down on us but at least we could have a nice chat about football. After all, this wasn’t Lithuania where basketball was pretty much a second religion. We were completely out of energy, so we just lay down on the ground for half an hour. It was really cold. J. decided not to wait anymore and go home, so I walked him to the bus stop and wished him luck in the difficult hitchhike towards Newcastle awaiting him. Then, I tried to sleep at the stop but after half an hour, a policeman told me to leave. I headed to the city center. I still couldn’t reach E. and I was getting worried. But once I reached the city center, I saw a homeless-looking person with a sad little bag. Only E. could have a bag like that:) It turned out that he got a pretty decent night’s sleep in a stairwell.

We explored the city during the day, then took a bus and were at the airport by the time it was dark. We found some massage chairs that would give you a massage for one pound. But it wasn’t the massages we needed. We hopped onto the chairs and instantly fell asleep, occasionally waking up and joking around. We left the chairs only the next morning. Surprisingly, not because a security guard told us to. Our coursemate and her friends had come back from London, so we all headed to check-in.

It was nice to sit in the plane knowing that we survived. It was also nice to think about the warm bed waiting for me in Lithuania. Well, if you know me, you’d know it’s not exactly a bed and not exactly warm:) But the challenges weren’t over yet. When I was on the train from Kaunas to Vilnius, I realized that I had left my keys at my parents’ house in Jonava. I was exhausted and this was the last thing that I needed. Of course, my friends would have been happy to help out but I decided I should take on any challenge that came my way. The night was rainy and I just walked around listening to Joy Division. I was completely out of energy and patience. Using the last bits of energy I had, I walked into university at 7 am and lay down on the sofa. I slept for an hour. After my lectures, I finally got the keys to my apartment and got a good fifteen hours of sleep.

Traveling with someone is much easier and less challenging than when you’re alone. When you get to speak with a friend throughout the whole trip, you don’t feel so far away or different. But you need to make sure that the person you’re with is the person you need. I survived.